IBM Center for The Business of Government

• Social Media: Useless and indispensable?  Naomi Simson writes a contrarian post titled "Face it – social media is not the answer to customer engagement" which juxtaposes nicely with "Social Media Customer Service Faces a High Bar," an article that demonstrates how customers expect a response through social media within 24 hours.  How muc

What happened?

While there are debates as to whether the Recovery Act saved the economy or not, the one thing that has not been in the headlines was the way federal agency leaders implemented more than 200 programs that were used to distribute the money. 

Sometimes GAO does terrific work but couches it in ways that its value may not be immediately obvious to busy readers.  Here’s a very practical report that looks at eight recent consolidation efforts undertaken by federal agencies and identifies five sets of questions that managers should be able to answer if they find themselves in charge of an initiative to consolidate infrastructure or management functions.  Since these kinds of reorganization efforts will likely be more common in coming years as agencies look for strategies to cut c

The Office of Management and Budget issued new guidance to agencies encouraging them to use program evaluation and evidence-based decisions when developing their budgets for FY 2014.  This commitment continues a trend begun in 2009 when President Obama took office.  But in similar memos in the past, the commitment was demonstrated by offering agencies more money if they undertook evaluations.  For example, in 2010